Berkeley Lab Hosts Weeklong Intensive Workshop on Cloud Computing

The forecast for many aspects of computing definitely calls for clouds, but cutting through the hype and getting a clear picture on the possibilities and limitations of cloud computing requires intensive hands-on sessions. To this end, Berkeley Lab’s Computational Research Division (CRD) is hosting a weeklong workshop on cloud computing from July 19-23.

The Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society ((CITRIS)at UC Berkeley is helping host the workshop. Participating organizations helping Berkeley Lab provide content include UC Berkeley, UC Davis, Yahoo!, Amazon, Eucalyptus Systems, the University of Virginia and Microsoft. The Department of Energy’s National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) contributed both workshop content and computing resources. Participation was limited to 45 and the limit was quickly met.

"There is a lot of information floating around on cloud computing, but it’s not easy to know where to start. Fortunately, we have a number of research projects, testbeds and collaborations in the cloud, so we were in a good position to marshal the necessary resources for this workshop," said organizer Deb Agarwal, head of CRD’s Advanced Computing for Science Department.

Among the topics to be covered during the workshop are an overview of cloud computing, software and systems training, data management and analysis, and experiences in using research and commercial cloud services.